Maintaining the Official [September the Eleventh, 2001]Story in the Face of Glaring Contradictions

Maintaining the Official Story in the Face of Glaring Contradictions
Ensuring the success of the official story of 9/11/01 despite the long sequence of highly improbable events it supposes required that people not pay too much attention to the details. This would be ensured by the "shock and awe" of the attack itself combined with an intense propaganda campaign to sell the official story. Ironically, the vast majority of those who created and promoted that propaganda probably did so innocently, never questioning the official version of events. The idea that the entire attack was an inside job was simply too unthinkable for most Americans to consider.

The use of disinformation and diversion to manipulate public opinion is a highly developed art. It is well understood not only by psychological operations experts in the national security establishment, but also by marketing and public relations wizards. With the engineering of public reaction to September 11, disinformation has been used with a sophistication and depth that is historically unprecedented. A key tool in this modern form of psychological warfare is the "meme" -- an idea that acts like an infectious agent to spread itself through a population. Through careful construction of memes, the perpetrators could depend on others to unwittingly promote their cover story and conceal the truth. Their disinformation strategy was twofold. First, they would sell the official story to the masses through the compliant mass media, relying on people's desire to believe the official story. Second, they would seed specious ideas in the community of "9/11 skeptics" in order to distract and discredit them.

The Official Story of September 11, and Its Apologists
On the day of the attack, details about the alleged perpetrators emerged with a rapidity that is remarkable given the assertions by high-ranking administration officials that no one had ever considered that an attacker could fly planes into buildings. Within hours the identities of several of the alleged hijackers were known, and Osama bin Laden was being presented as the prime suspect. Within three days the FBI published the identities of all the alleged hijackers. It was being presented as an open-and-shut case.

Academics helped to explain the collapses of the Twin Towers in articles in respected publications. Just two days after the attack, a scientific paper purported to fully explain the unprecedented engineering failures using "elastic dynamic analysis." "Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? - Simple Analysis" was published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE on 9/13/01. Peer review of this paper and of other theories volunteering to explain the collapses was conspicuously absent.

The mass media were consistent in avoiding asking the most obvious questions. Why did the air defense network fail to respond? Why did Flight 77 target the recently-fortified, mostly empty portion of the Pentagon? Why was the Ground Zero steel removed and destroyed as fast as possible? The media shirked their public service obligation of acting as watchdogs of the government, and instead became cheerleaders for the administration's war plans for central Asia.

The vast body of print reportage about September 11 attack is notable for an abundance of contradictions. The timelines in the Complete 9-11 Timeline series reveal numerous inconsistencies, such as between reported times of events. These discrepancies, combined with the lack of evidence, discourage investigation of facts of the attack. Meanwhile, the impending attack on Afghanistan, the alleged Islam-terror link, and "homeland security" got the attention.

This section examines just a few of the elements of the official story of September 11 with a skeptical view and attention to contradictions.

Red Flags: People are able to accept theories blessed by government and mainstream media, despite inconsistencies and long series of improbable coincidences.
Cover Stories: The top four in command of our defense go about routine appointments for an hour as the attack unfolds.
Experts on Parade: Experts "explain" the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings.
Disinformation Targeting the Skeptics
Disinformation aimed at skeptics of the official story is more subtle than the simple promotion of that story to the masses. It may consist of ideas with no basis in evidence packaged as shocking new findings that supposedly prove the involvement of insiders. Its effect is to discredit the larger body of 9/11 research through guilt by association with its sensational and unscientific approach. An example is the idea that Twin Towers were not hit by Flights 11 or 175 but rather by completely different objects, such as military planes with missile-firing pods. Since 9-11 Research does not provide analysis of such disinformation, we recommend the disinformation section of 911review.com.